Historic railway bridge to come down

RANCHO CUCAMONGA - It's been nearly seven decades since trains from the Pacific Electric Railway rumbled past this town but reminders of the bright red transit system still linger.

There's the Pacific Electric Trail, where walkers, runners and cyclists traverse the 7.5-mile path where the rails once lay in this city. On Etiwanda Avenue, there's the old Etiwanda depot, which will eventually be a rest stop for trail users with restrooms, a picnic area and a small museum.

Then there's the Foothill Boulevard bridge near Baker Avenue, a remnant from 1929 showing motorists just how quaint and narrow Route 66 once was.

Near the city's western border with Upland, the bridge is also a reminder of the rural neighborhoods of Rancho Cucamonga, when farmers depended on a trustworthy train to transport the oranges, lemons and grapefruit that covered the bucolic hillsides.

Come Sunday morning, the 110-ton steel bridge will be hoisted up from its concrete foundation and dismantled. Two cranes will remove the bridge and place it on the north side of Foothill Boulevard, where workers will spend the next two weeks removing paint and dismantling the bridge. It will eventually be replaced by a longer, more modern one as part of a massive street widening project aimed to resuscitate an oft-ignored corner of the city.

"It will be an important economic investment in this part of town," said associate engineer Curt Billings. "This area will catch up and rival the eastern portion."

Starting at 7 a.m. Saturday, Foothill Boulevard will be closed from San Bernardino Road to Baker Avenue for no more than 72 hours, Billings said. However, access to the three businesses east of San Bernardino Road on the west side of the bridge - a storage facility, RV shop and Sycamore Inn - will be provided.

All lanes will be opened by 7 a.m. Monday when motorists will drive through the skinny portion of Route 66 with nothing overhead. The bridge that carried the San Bernardino line of the Pacific Electric Railway in the 1920s and '30s will be gone.

Long before smog and freeways, there were the Red Cars that connected Los Angeles to its neighboring counties. In advertisements, Pacific Electric bragged about being the "World's greatest electric railway system" and boasted 2,700 scheduled trains daily and more than one million miles of tracks during the height of its time.

According to a 1938 train schedule, a commuter leaving Fontana at 6:46 a.m. could reach Los Angeles Union Station at 8:19 a.m. Today's Metrolink makes that trip only 14 minutes faster.

In 1912, Piotr Alexeitch Dementieff Demens, identified as the unofficial mayor of Alta Loma in some publications, led efforts to raise more than $19,000 to purchase the railroad right of way in Alta Loma. Demens, a president of the Citizens League, got the help from members, who were farmers wanting transportation for their produce.

The San Bernardino line connected Covina, or Valley Junction, to San Bernardino. According to a 1953 issue of the railway journal Interurbans, nearly $1.5 million was appropriated for the Upland-to-San Bernardino stretch of the rail line in February 1913.

Construction started in Fontana and worked its way eastward and westward. By January 1914, trains were making two round trips daily from Upland to Etiwanda.

According to Interurbans, "The San Bernardino line, with its several branches, did more than any other lines to give Pacific Electric the distinction of being classified as an interurban operator."

On July 11, 1914, a day-long street party marked the first train to pull into the San Bernardino station, where 20,000 people celebrated. Demens held up a spike and declared, "Alta Loma presents this silver spike with the hope that it will prove to be taken of a new solidarity of interest throughout the orange land."

Thirty years after that festive day, the San Bernardino-bound train took its last trip. The entire system was largely abandoned in the late 1950s, when Pacific Electric was no longer profitable and the age of automobiles was in full bloom.

In a 1998 Daily Bulletin article, Phillys Jeanne Clark was quoted reminiscing about the train that took her and her young friends to San Bernardino. When the train reached Etiwanda, Clark recalled the conductor calling out "windy Wanda" because of the notorious winds that whipped through the area.

"The upholstery was red, like red velvet, and the back of the seat was on a hinge so you could face either way depending on which way the train was going," Clark recalled. "We almost always got a drink of water from a fountain that had tiny paper cups."

Today, the railway route is used by morning joggers and families of cyclists. But to make way for the bridge construction, the western portion of the trail from Grove to Vineyard avenues is closed through the end of 2011.

Workers will widen the Mother Road from four to six lanes and build a raised median, sidewalks and bicycle lanes. A storm drain will be installed and the traffic signals will be synchronized.

In late August, construction will begin on the new bridge, which is expected to be complete next June. During bridge construction, only one lane in each direction will be open on Foothill Boulevard from San Bernardino Road to Vineyard Avenue.

Only a couple of days remain to get a glimpse of the 81-year-old bridge before it's torn apart. But when the entire project is complete, there will be a chance to see the historic bridge at the trailhead park on the north side of Foothill. A portion of the old bridge will be preserved as a decorative feature of the park.

The trailhead, just east of the bridge, will also preserve a portion of the original Route 66 pavement found north of Foothill and will also include equestrian facilities, restrooms, benches and a table.

Cost of the entire project, including street improvements, bridge and trailhead construction, is estimated at $19 million.

This article was written with the help of the Model Colony History Room at the Ontario City Library.